


Magidrasa

by Foxenlock



Category: Original Work
Genre: Battle, Duty, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Food, Forbidden Love, Grief/Mourning, Guards, High Fantasy, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Themes, Love, M/M, Magic, Middle East, POV Alternating, POV Queer Character, POV Third Person, Portals, Princes & Princesses, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Quests, Rebellion, Romance, Royalty, Sex, Swords & Sorcery, War, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:09:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29019486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foxenlock/pseuds/Foxenlock
Summary: Melham, Orsha of the realm and of ancient wizarding blood, has scandalously chosen his secret lover Korosh as his sworn knight. Before the whispers can cease to echo through his great fallen father’s halls, they must set out to broach peace talks with his enemies. Encountering old magics and falling far from home, Melham discovers there’s another enemy that threatens the kingdom he’s soon to inherit. One closer than he could have imagined.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character





	1. Chapter 1

If there was any danger of being seen, Melham chose to ignore it. Only plum coloured silks fluttered in the open archways. Steam rose from his bath, scented with oranges and rose petals, deeply set into the terracotta floor. The water line rested against his chest as he lounged, arms spread either side of him. Crouched at the crown of his head, Korosh worked a fragrant soap through his hair, teasing out the knots that had formed since the last time they were so freely together. 

“You’ll need someone else to prepare you soon enough,” Korosh said, his voice like cloves and honey.

“I could always bring you along to attend me,” Melham replied.

Korosh cupped the side of his face with a light slap, disturbing the surface of the water. The petals bobbed like sailboats on a lulling sea.

“Help, help,” Melham said, pitching his voice an octave higher. “The Orsha is being assaulted—” whatever else he might have said, he was dunked beneath the water, held there for a count of three and left to resurface again, sputtering.

Korosh stood above him smiling, a vase of water held in his hands. Dark hair clad his hard muscled body. Hidden here and there were the black tattoos of a man resigned forever to be a Halakia. His beard was thick and oiled, as neatly kept as the cropped hair on his head.

Melham swept his own wet hair from his face and climbed up out of the bath. He slipped one hand to Korosh’s chiselled hip, smiled once and pulled the guard towards him. His lips still tasted of pistachios and cinnamon.

“I need oiling,” Melham said, turning slowly away. He looked back over a slender shoulder, sultry as he could summon.

Korosh replaced the vase and returned with a pot of warm olive oil that he smoothed over the nape of Melham’s neck and the planes of his shoulders. Down the dark gentle line of his spine, his flanks and thighs and, turning him round, his chest and throat and stomach.

“Everywhere,” Melham said, so quiet it might have been a whisper.

“My Orsha,” Korosh replied and grabbed Melham’s cock in his hand. “You’ll never make the ceremony if we continue like this.”

Melham returned the gesture, if only with a fiercer grip, earning a grunt from his guard. “You’re right,” he said, relaxed his fingers. “I’ll help you back into your armour.”

Korosh at least had the good sense to be still as Melham eased each piece of armour over his doublet. Breastplate, greaves and pauldrons polished and oiled, and a mail skirt of burnished rings. Lastly his knife and sword, both sheathed at the thick hide belt at his middle. His hood he wore around his shoulders and his helmet held under one arm.

With the oil absorbed, Melham ran a perfume of saffron and myrrh through his hair, over his throat, and dressed himself in ceremonial robes. Nothing so simple as those of an ordinary acolyte, but what was expected of an Orsha. Rich silks, carefully dyed and detailed. Around his neck were strings of beads and jewelled pendants gripped in gold.

“You go on ahead,” Melham said, slipping the last of his rings onto his fingers.

Korosh bowed and marched out of the bathhouse, the purple silks trailing behind him. Melham counted to five hundred in his head before he slipped his bare feet into sandals. Taking up his staff, he made his own way to the throne room.

It was all columns and arches. Above the gathered audience of nobles, court wizards and Ashahren was a ceiling painted blue and gold and inset with coloured glass to let in the light. The floor was tiled in a repeating pattern leading to a short staircase where two thrones sat. The largest of them empty and, beside it, Melham’s mother sat in the simple black robe and headscarf she’d worn this past month of mourning.

A column of guards led him through the throne room. Korosh stood at the front wielding his ceremonial spear on Melham’s right side. Spreading in two wings, the audience sat in their bright clothes and jewels like a vast patterned rug draped over the long benches.

The guards brought him to a halt at the bottom of the stairs as they’d all rehearsed in the long days leading up to the ceremony. At the top stood the Magidrasan himself. Head of all wizards, the oldest and wisest by far.

“Prince Melham, Orsha of all lands,” the Magidrasan began, his jewelled staff held in both hands. “A month into mourning is no time to mourn at all. The water of your father’s spirit still swims here amongst us, still steaming up towards the sky. But our enemies will not give us time as tradition commands. And so, we are all gathered here to see you bound to your Ashahren and sent to speak the king’s peace.”

Melham bowed his head for a moment, grateful for the staff to keep him from swaying on his feet.

“Will you now announce your chosen knight, take your Ashahren?”

“I will,” Melham replied, clear and confident as he could muster.

He climbed the steps, taking them one at a time as he’d been instructed. At the top he stopped and turned to face the audience. Here he’d been meant to say the name of the Ashahren they’d selected for him. The knight they’d assigned him whose name and face he could hardly recall, a man whose virtues were the same as a dozen others. But that had never been his intention.

“Already we’ve parted with tradition. My father, the king of all kings, should have been leading these peace talks. In his place, I will serve my people with honour and wisdom. I therefore require the best of warriors by my side.” Melham paused, taking in the gathered assembly, dressed in the hues of their households. “I name Korosh, Halakia of my household, as my Ashahren.”

“My Orsha,” the Magidrasan said through his teeth so only Melham could hear it. Over the rising whispers from the audience, his caution was unnecessary. “Hardly the time for your jokes.”

“I speak truly,” Melham said, addressing as much the Magidrasan as the audience. “You’ll find no finer warrior in skill, in courage and ability. If it weren’t for his low birth, he’d already be distinguished among the Asha.”

Melham turned to look at the Magidrasan who seemed to struggle with what he should say. He was joined by the queen who placed one hand on his shoulder. The other she held up, fingers fixed together and the palm facing outwards. Her mourning kept her promised to silence until the water of the king’s soul had turned to steam. Yet there was no misunderstanding her meaning.

The Magidrasan nodded and tapped his staff on the ground, returning silence to the throne room. “Korosh, Halakia of the royal household. Step forward.”

Korosh left his position, glancing over at Melham as he approached, expression giving nothing away. He set down his spear and took a knee at the bottom of the stairs. The Magidrasan, acting on the Queen’s behalf, spoke the binding words and Korosh and Melham were soon stood side by side.

“Tomorrow you take the wisdom and strength of your household with you,” he said. “May your Ashahren protect and serve you and may you, Melham, Orsha of all lands, make your father proud to have called you heir and I to have called you student.”

The ceremony traditionally ended in a feast, a night at least for most bindings, three for those in his lower household. But for a prince, Melham had been told to expect a week, with tables buckling with food and wine. That had been a month or more ago, when the king still lived and Melham’s graduation as Magidrasa had still been years away. Now there was no time and Melham sat with his silent mother at a table sparsely set. Until her mourning passed, she would only imbibe water and a porridge of bulgur wheat. Melham sipped at his wine and, in silence, ate chicken livers with pomegranate and chickpeas dressed in lemon and olive oil.

And now he was bound, a fully-fledged Magidrasa by proxy, not in practice. At least he’d have Korosh by his side through what was yet to come. He finished the meal and wiped his mouth, kissed his mother’s hands, and left for the Magispire

*

The smith bent over a breastplate at his anvil and tapped at his long thin chisel with a hammer, setting the inscription into the metal. Korosh stood and watched, dressed in a cloth cloak and sandals. The sun was on its way to setting. When it rose, he’d be dispatched as an Ashahren bound to Melham. He still wasn’t sure what to make of that. He’d been as shocked as anyone else when the prince had announced it. So he’d just stood there, brows furrowed and mouth open as if to call a bluff but knowing it wasn’t his place to speak. No previous word of warning, no hint or suggestion.

When the smith had finished, he buffed the breastplate to a shine and passed it over for inspection. Korosh saw himself reflected in blurry shades on the surface. The three towers and olive tree of Melham’s family crest was etched now over his heart. He ran his fingers over the lines and thanked the smith for his work.

“Better be off with that beard, too,” the smith said, setting his tools aside.

Korosh smoothed his beard down. That was something he hadn’t considered, but that was one tradition at least he’d have to observe. He wouldn’t put it past Melham to have named him his Ashahren just to get him to shave. He covered the breastplate with a cloth and hefted it under his arm.

From the smith’s yard he followed the main path away from the castle, down the long flat steps where the upper part of the city gave way to a ring of houses, baths, workshops and barracks. This had been his home these past years, sleeping and training, and sneaking off to steal time with Melham. Now that he wasn’t a guard anymore, the barracks were just a building, lost in the shadow of the great sandstone wall that looped around the city. He tightened his grip on the breastplate and waded through the tight streets where the small stone houses looked much like another. The ground was carpeted in sand, blown over the walls and gathered at the bottom tier of the city like a gutter.

He found his family’s house and knocked at the door. His sister Nalya, a skinny thing of five, opened the door and looked up at him with her long, tangled hair and eyes greener now than brown.

“Koro,” she said and rushed him for a hug.

He stooped down to squeeze her. “Are you going to let me in then?”

She took him by his free hand and led him inside. Before she locked the door, she checked left and right down either side of the street. Just like his father had shown him, all those years before.

The house was a single room walled and roofed in stone. There was an open fire to cook on, with blankets on the floor for sleeping and a few chests for storage. The smell of wood smoke and cooking lentils scented the air. His mother worked a pot over the fire and his father, what he could see of him, was wrapped up on the floor. Only his bearded face visible in amongst the blankets.

“Doesn’t look as if he’s moved,” Korosh said, looking down at him. Only a twitch of the lips made it look like he was drawing breath at all. 

“He’s not,” his mother replied. “Least not without my aid and only then to feed him and see he’s emptied.”

“Has the healer been?”

“I’ve told you, can’t afford no healers. Alaf’s seen him, said to keep him warm, feed him lentil broth with turmeric. Pepper, if we had any.”

“What’s that, Koro?” Nalya asked, pulling at the cloth covered bundle under his arm.

“Why I’m here,” he replied and unwrapped the breastplate. He held it out like an offering. “They named me Ashahren.”

His mother turned away from the fire, her hand paused mid-stir over the simmering pot. “Ashahren? A real Ashahren, my boy?”

Korosh nodded and passed the armour to Nalya when she stood on tiptoes to reach it. “The Orsha named me himself.”

“And they’ll give you quarters in the palace?” his mother asked, her hand still stationary on the stirrer.

“For all of us.” Korosh looked down at Nalya as she spat on the breastplate and buffed it with a ragged sleeve.

His mother struggled to her feet and held him. She sobbed quietly into the crook of his neck before she knelt back down beside father. She spoke to him softly, brushing hairs out of his face and stroking his cheeks with her hand.

“After I return,” Korosh said. “I leave for the front lines tomorrow.”

“Oh no, my son, they’re not sending you to fight. My heart can’t bear to lose another.”

“The Orsha leaves for peace talks. The fighting has dried up. Neither side can gain any more ground.”

“Is he up to it?” she asked. “He’s not his father, we can tell that much from down here.”

Korosh didn’t respond at first. No, Melham wasn’t his father, but then his father wasn’t Melham. “He’ll do what’s best for all of us.”

“Just come back to me safely,” his mother said and returned to stirring the lentils.

Before he left, Korosh kissed his father’s forehead, feeling the sweat and sickly heat beneath his lips. He let himself out, the breastplate wrapped back in its cloth under his arm. He felt his little sister watching as he disappeared into the crowd and up towards the gold-topped towers that from this far down the city seemed to reach the clouds.

*

The Magispire was by far the tallest of the three towers of Hah’shalaban. Each of them eggshell white and topped with a roof of peaked gold like a drop of stiffened cream. There was no entrance, something Melham suspected had more to do with inspiring acolytes than anything to do with security. Had he finished his schooling, Melham would have learned to open portals. As it was, he was left like any other acolyte waiting at the base of the tower while a portal was opened for him.

There was nothing approaching a staircase inside, with portals taking one wherever they needed to be. For Melham, that was at the storm anchor centred in a round room beneath the tower roof. The anchor’s bronze coloured core reached from the floor and into the roof, forming the epicentre of the gold peak. At waist height around the anchor was a stone basin filled with water where purple palm-sized stones floated and glowed with a white light.

Standing over the basin was Lhamin, a slightly stooped man in a blue cloak with long white hair and a white beard Melham had never known him to trim. He seemed slow and frail though no one knew his age for certain. He taught the magicks of motion and portals, and word among the acolytes was that he’d soon be taking over as Magidrasan.

“Ah, there you are, Orsha,” Lhamin said, his voice like sand skittered along by a breeze.

Melham cleared a path forward with his staff, avoiding the scrolls piled into pyramids, and contraptions he couldn’t recognise on the floor. “I’ll be coming for your job next,” he said.

“I don’t doubt it,” Lhamin replied with a knowing little laugh. He gazed into the water for a moment and returned his attention to Melham. “Well then, you’ve come for a Barijir stone.” Their exact meaning of the word had been lost, the closest being ‘lightning seed’, though ‘conduit stone’ was closer.

“Yes, Lhamin,” Melham said and stood beside him. “Now that I can carry one.” He stared down into the water, where the stones sank and rose in steady rhythm.

“They aren’t for you.” Lhamin pulled a stone out from within the anchor, pinched in placed as if by a giant metal forefinger and thumb. “Freshly charged. The very best for our Orsha.”

Melham accepted the stone His fingers tingled and his palm felt numb, as though he’d fallen asleep on his arm. Nothing at all like the little glowing pebbles they’d been allowed to use as acolytes. 

“Well go on then, set it in your staff,” Lhamin said, an eager expression on his wizened face. As he moved his robes fluttered, sending off a smell of sawdust and hot metal.

Melham placed the stone in the open clutch of splinters that was the head of his staff. With a quick contraction of his hand, the stone glowed, and the splinters sealed themselves over until staff and stone were one.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“And fickle,” Lhamin replied. “Barijir stones are unpredictable at best, wild as lightning. Yet so easy a source to draw from. Be careful, young one.”

“I will,” Melham said. He planted the stem of the staff on the floor.

“Now, my Orsha, off with you and we’ll meet again on your return, however long that may be.” 

Lhamin said no more, as was his way. Even when he did speak, mostly it was in riddles and rhymes. The old man opened a portal with a wave of his hand, effortless as if he’d been trying to pick a fig from a tree.

Melham stepped through with the familiar wild rush as he felt himself pulled this way and that and walked out again at the base of the tower. _However long that may be_ , he thought and made for the palace.

*

“You should have told me,” Korosh said, his face barely visible in the dark. The dim glow of an oil lamp beside the bed found his outline.

“And would you have believed me?” Melham said. The smell of sweat and sex lingered in the air between them.

Korosh sighed. “No,” he said at last. “But how am I to know if what you said was true, if I really am deserving of this honour, or if it’s just because I’m sleeping with the Orsha.”

Melham reached out until the heel of his hand rested on Korosh’s freshly shaven face. “I’ve seen you train,” he said. “Seen you fight and march and bathe and brawl. You’re so beautiful and fierce and capable. Let no one doubt I picked wisely.”

At that Korosh was quiet for a while. Melham savoured the silence between them until he drifted slowly into sleep.

“And if anyone finds us out?” Korosh’s voice could reach him even in dreams.

He kept his eyes closed and, when he spoke, his voice was hoarse and drawn. “They won’t,” he said. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ll just change the rules when I’m king.”

“But you don’t want to be king,” Korosh said, serious as Melham had ever heard him.

For that, though, Melham had no answer. When he sank into sleep a second time, he was left to float into unconsciousness. Only in the early hours did he wake once more. Korosh snored softly beside him. The oil lamp had burned itself out. Soon the sun would rise and with it their call to leave the city. When he tried to sleep again, Melham found himself unable.


	2. Chapter 2

As dawn blushed over the Magispire, Korosh and Melham led a procession on their armoured horses. It might have been a parade, with its silks and banners and long trumpets blowing fanfares, were the prince returning and not departing. The procession snaked down through the city to stop at the great stone archway where a regiment of four mounted guards were waiting.

Melham stopped and brought his horse around. Had he been king, he’d have been expected to say something. Some words of wisdom or a stirring speech. As a prince, it was enough to hold his staff aloft and let a pulse of light move over the crowd. As he turned to leave, Korosh followed on his flank, leading the guards through the archway and out of the city.

The sound of trumpets and cheering faded as Hah’shalaban shrank at their backs. From the city walls they rode until the sand become scrub, beyond and into trees. By the end of the morning, they’d reached a copse of old oaks growing either side of a thin ribbon of running water. Heavy branches formed an awning overhead, dappling shadows as they brought the horses to a stop to rest and feed. 

“We used to come here as children,” Melham said, looking up from his lunch of pine nuts and crumbled curd cheese.

“We?” Korosh replied, pissing against a tree.

“Mother would take us. When it was still safe. Me and Anoush.”

The soldiers stood and ate or else tended their horses. They’d introduced themselves, but Melham had met so many soldiers. There was Rami, a broad bald man with a heavy brow, and a woman he remembered as Sefa. She sat and snapped a brittle flatbread in two and looked his way.

“Don’t mean to be rude, Orsha,” she said, “but her name’s not a good one to say out loud. Least not around us in armour anyway. Supposed to be bad luck.”

“Bad luck?” Melham said as if he’d just been told the sky was on fire. He looked over at Korosh who stood and scratched the back of his head.

“I didn’t ever want to bring it up,” his Ashahren said, avoiding eye contact.

“Didn’t meant anything by it, Orsha,” Sefa said. “Your father, he took her as his ward to keep the clans in check. Only it’s happening all over again, ‘cept now she’s the one leading them.”

“You forget your place, Halakia,” Korosh said, sterner than Melham had expected.

“It’s okay,” Melham said, holding up one of his soft slender hands. “Had my father simply locked her up, all this might have been avoided, true. But we left to attend peace talks, not to meet in battle. Anoush never forgot her own father, but I still consider her sister.”

“Yes, Orsha,” Sefa said, stuffing flatbread into her mouth. “Forgive me.”

“We should move on,” Korosh said and turned to Melham. “There’s still a lot of ground to cover.”

“Orsha.” one of the guards said. “We’re ready—”

An arrow struck him in the throat. The guard choked and gurgled and dropped to the floor. Sefa leapt up, drawing her sword. Melham lurched as Korosh tackled him to the ground.

“Stay down,” he said and stood.

Korosh pressed himself against a tree where he drew his own blade. He peeked out from behind the trunk. Sefa had done the same, pressed up so closely against the oak it looked as though she was disappearing into the bark. Rami crawled forward on his forearms to join her.

Arrows whistled above them and ripped through the leaves like stuck birds. Melham scrambled on his hands and knees to the safety of Korosh’s side. He turned back. saw his staff abandoned and cursed himself.

The last of his Halakia was mounted. He kicked his horse forward. Arrows ripped him from the saddle. Hanging from the stirrups by one twisted leg, he was dragged along as the horse fled. Arrow shafts stuck out from its flank.

Melham leant against the tree, his knees up to his chest. Korosh and Sefa swapped hand gestures. When he listened for more arrows, for any sign of their enemy, there was nothing. Just the wind through the trees and the gentle babbling of the nearby stream.

“Five scouts. Coming this way,” Korosh whispered with a glance down at Melham. “Stay out of sight.”

Melham looked out from behind the tree. The scouts were dressed in dark wrappings and here and there a piece of burnished metal. Each of them had bows on their backs and short swords in their hands. They crossed the water and came up the bank towards them.

The scouts passed by the trees into the clearing where Melham’s staff still lay. Where one guard still lay bleeding. When the fifth scout passed their hidden spot behind the trees, Korosh slashed out with his sword. His blade cleaved between the neck and shoulder of the rear scout. He yanked his sword free, parried a blow, and took another down.

Sefa had drawn her knife, thrusting out when she parried with her sword. Rami roared and spat as he fought, frightening birds out of the trees. He slashed out and kicked and headbutted until his own nose ran thick with blood.

Melham tried to look small where he sat. His staff lay in the middle of the battle, the barijir stone blinking. One scout peeled off from the fight and came towards him, a glint of metal in his gloved fist.

He moved out from under the tree, backing away from the scout. He clenched his eyes closed for a moment, trying to recall a spell. Any spell. There was no blade at his belt. All he had were his jewels and robes. All of it useless.

The scout ran and reached out with his free hand, grabbing Melham by the throat, before pulling back his knife. Korosh charged him, knocking them both to the ground. Melham clawed his way back and stumbled over an arching tree root. He leapt for his staff and turned back to the scout. Korosh had raised his own knife and drew it deeply across the scout’s exposed throat. The body went limp. No gurgling cries, no twitches of the limbs. Nothing.

The rest of the scouts were the same. Dark shapes in rags, defeated and motionless on the ground. Rami’s shoulders heaved as he sucked in breath after breath. Sefa put her blades away. And Korosh put his hand on Melham’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Melham just nodded, a lump in his throat.

“Got a live one here,” Sefa said and drew her sword again.

“Wait. We should question him,” Korosh said. “Orsha?”

“Yes.” Melham worked his tongue into the dry spaces of his mouth. “Of course.”

Sefa left for her horse and returned with a length of rope from a saddlebag. This she used to bind the scout’s hands behind his back. After she sat him upright, she pulled the wrappings free from his face. He was bald with unremarkable features set in skin the colour of storm clouds. “Doesn’t look like one of theirs,” Sefa said.

“’less the bastards are shipping in hired blades to do their dirty work,” Rami said. His voice was raw, all broken stone and sun-baked earth. He cuffed the sticky blood from his lips and nose.

Korosh crouched until he was at eye level with the scout. “What was your mission?” he asked. No response. “Who ordered you to ambush the Orsha?”

“Don’t think you’ll get anything out of this one,” Sefa said. She knocked at the side of the scout’s head with her knuckles. “Simple as a stunned horse.”

“Sharp enough to take down two of our own,” Rami said. He snorted and spat a globe of blood.

“Check his neck and arms for any tattoos or brands,” Korosh said and Sefa peeled back the earthy smelling wrappings.

“Not a thing,” she said.

“Kill him and be done with it,” Rami said.

“No,” Korosh said. “If he’s one of theirs, we’ll bring him with us to the peace talks. That is, if the Orsha agrees.”

Melham nodded.

“Two dead guards is proof enough.” Rami sheathed his sword. 

“What about the dead?” Sefa asked in a softer voice.

Melham raised his staff. His eyes were closed. A glow from the stone pulsed out around them, bathed the littered dead in light, and withdrew again. “The city will send a regiment to collect them,” he said. Now that the Magispire had seen what they’d seen.

“We need to move,” Korosh said. “Sefa, you take the rear. Rami, I want you riding middle with the scout.”

“Not having him in my saddle,” Rami said. “He don’t talk, I say he walks.”

“That much we can agree on.” Korosh handed him the rope.

Melham walked back to his horse, keeping himself upright with his staff. The muscles of his legs were tight with cramp. For all that, his thoughts were fuzzy, his mind a handful of sand thrown into the wind. He secured his staff to the side of his saddle, climbed onto his horse and waited for Korosh to lead them out of the oaks. 

*

That night they camped in the ruin of an old stone keep. It overlooked a valley of blue glassy waters in rocky slopes green as new shoots. In the distance was a mountain range, clinging to mist and peaked in snow. As the sun slipped behind the horizon, they disappeared from view. Their shadows stretched over the valley until it looked as though they were stood at the edge of a vast abyss.

The ruined keep had been a watchtower once, Melham’s father had told him. Though its roof was open to the sky, its strong walls offered protection from the evening chill and the winds that swept down from the mountains. In the centre of the floor a fire burned and around it Sefa and Rami slept, swords by their sides.

Melham roused himself from a shallow sleep. He ate a quick supper and rinsed his face in water.

Korosh sat at the mouth of the keep, where there had been a door long before. His face was shadowed, but as he looked up at Melham the firelight softened his features.

“It’s my shift,” Melham said.

“I could use the sleep,” Korosh replied. He stood and stretched his arms until the elbows clicked and popped.

Melham spared a look over his shoulder where his two guards slept. He pressed himself against Korosh, felt his strong hard chest beneath his hands, and rested his head against his neck. His arms were firm and warm around him.

“I just panicked. Froze up,” Melham said in a breathy whisper. “I should have done something. Even if I’d had a sword – if Magidrasa were allowed to train with swords. It’s just… they died, my Halakia, and I did nothing.”

Korosh took hold of his shoulders and looked at him at arm’s length. His eyes were dark and smouldering as the fire that kept the night chill at bay. “They’d still be dead,” he said. “They were both proud to serve your family.”

“Who were they, those scouts?” Melham took Korosh’s hand in his and weaved their fingers together.

Korosh let out a long breath. “I don’t know. Mercenaries, maybe. But why would Anoush call for peace talks only to have you killed or captured?”

“You’ve not learned anything else?”

“Nothing,” Korosh said. “Hasn’t said a word. Wouldn’t eat when I offered him food. He just sits there and stares.”

“That much I can deal with,” Melham said. He pulled Korosh into a kiss and replaced him in the doorway. ~~~~

Melham sat with his shoulders hunched and drew his robes around him. The scout’s face was a grey moon looking out at him from the gloom. The eyes craters and the thin line of his mouth a scar. A mouth too thin. The whole face looked wrong, somehow. The facial features too precise, too symmetrical. Melham turned to his side, letting more of the firelight behind him escape, and squinted his eyes. Still it wasn’t enough.

He stood and took a few testing steps out of the keep. No reaction from the scout, but that much Melham had expected. Another few steps forward until only a half metre lay between them. A smell of blood and earth was on the air. Melham knelt, his hands in his lap.

It wasn’t that the mouth was thinner but disappearing, sealing itself shut. There were no eyes, only dark empty holes. As Melham moved back, the head turned, and those dark depths were on him. 

A Klalaben, it had to be. It had only been from poems and paintings in scrolls, but he recognised the signs of a clay man. All those old texts agreed on a few things for certain. Clay men couldn’t die, and whoever it was that had made or enchanted this one could see them all now.

The clay man stood. The rope that had bound his wrists was left in loose loops on the ground. And it came for Melham.


End file.
